Borderline Arc II: Turn
by Yamino Tenshi 202
Summary: Danny looked up. The person, the boy that floated about three feet in front of him had the same voice as the one that had spoken in his head before. He had a black Hazmat suit with white gloves, belt, boots and accent about his neck. An exact opposite of him. "Phantom?" And the blood around them fell and Danny was stuck looking at eyes of fire.
1. Turn

A/N: Here marks where the story ties in with the Danny Phantom series itself.

This arc holds slight spoilers for various novels (such as 1984) and films. I have attempted to keep these as ambiguous as possible. These are only to keep things contemporary with our time, as the show takes place in the U.S. in a relatively modern (mid-2000s, if not futuristic) setting.

* * *

Book 2 – Turn

* * *

2012

Danny collapsed onto the lab floor. It was only chance that he fell that way and didn't fall out of the Portal into the Ghost Dimension, or the Ghost Zone as his parents called it.

Perhaps the story would be different if he had fallen the other way.

That's not the way we want it;

Thus, it shall not occur.

Sam held a hand up to her mouth in fright. Tucker looked to his friend on the floor and then to the machines running the Portal. All of the levels were normal, the machine stable. It wouldn't be short-circuiting, from what he could tell. He went forward and pulled Danny from the machine. Sam continued to stand in shock.

Their friend's scream had been terrifying, a shrill wail like that of a murder victim from a movie that they had seen, just as the knife dug into her chest. What pain, what intense power, had been coursing through him to make that din erupt from his throat?

"What happened to his hair?" He asked the question out loud, his voice surprising him in its even tone… He did not sound as frightened as he felt.

Sam came forward and helped Tucker turn Danny to his back, a shuddering sigh releasing itself from her lungs as she saw his chest go up and down.

"I don't know, but… He's breathing!" She let a small smile grace her face. "He's alive, Tucker!"

Danny coughed and made a small groan, his eyes closing tighter as though Sam was too loud. Then again…

He shouldn't have heard anything, if his plan had gone correctly. But it had not.

Danny opened his eyes blearily, though he felt as though this was not the real world. Instead he was in an area where there was no scent, distance, or even depth. He was in a place that simply was. The best he could describe it as was an endless plane of white with a floor and ceiling that were invulnerable to being measured. He looked down at himself. His Hazmat suit was still its white with black accents pattern. Hadn't it been reverse earlier?

_**That would have been my suit.**_

Danny looked up. The person, the boy that floated about three feet in front of him had the same voice as the one that had spoken in his head before. He had a black Hazmat suit with white gloves, belt, boots and accent about his neck.

An exact opposite of him.

_Phantom?_ He asked, and the world made itself more apparent to him. He did not speak here, or not as he normally did. His mouth opened and his throat vibrated as he normally would, but it was not as loud as the words pushing themselves out of his mind.

_**Yes.**_

_Phantom, what happened? Where are we?_

The spirit – that's what he assumed – bit his lip, as though unsure.

_You don't know, do you?_

_**My many apologies, but I don't know.** _Phantom shook his head.

_I figured._ Danny sighed. He raised a hand to his face and rubbed at his eyes, letting the cool pads of his fingertips touch his eyelids. The feeling was soothing, letting his troubled mind focus on something else for a few moments, rather than think about-

_**Am I stress-inducing?** _Danny opened his eyes and Phantom was only inches away from him. The fourteen-year-old jumped back, stumbling and falling on his backside.

_N-No! Just don't surprise me like that!_ He laughed lightly at the look of concern in the ghost's eyes. All of his previous thoughts disappeared.

_**What is that?** _He heard Phantom ask and Danny looked up to see something shining in the white space around them. Several shining objects surrounded them and quickly multiplied. Danny turned a bit to stand and stared at Phantom's hand as its owner offered it. After a few moments, he grabbed it and stood up.

_I don't know…_

Danny reached towards one of the objects and gently touched its surface. It was like a crystal, the kind hung on chandeliers… It was a wonderful golden colour. He tried to close his fingers around it, but it would not let him, slipping out between the cracks of his fingers before remerging and returning to its original form.

Phantom hummed softly before reaching for another crystal, a blue one. A silver one danced playfully next to it.

_**Are these belonging to one of us? Or both?** _Suddenly the gems began to shift through the air, moving to opposing sides of the white space. Many went to one side, while only one remained on the other. It shone brightly, a brilliant torch that made the white space surrounding it look dim.

Danny had only the first one that he had captured by him. He reached for it again and stared at it.

_**What's going on?**_

Danny reached for one of the gems among the multitude and he could feel his mom's hand smoothing back his hair, soothing whispers coming from her as Danny felt so ill.

Danny hadn't been ill like that in years. Pulling back his hand, he felt nostalgia as he gazed at many of the gems.

_Our memories?_

Danny and Phantom both looked to the lone crystal, a silver one, which began to be accompanied with some others. Danny felt nothing from it, but he saw how the ghost looked at in with the same sense of nostalgia and longing he felt.

Silver, green, black, and gold all over Phantom's side began to shine.

_It's filling up._

Danny sighed.

_All right._ He turned to the ghost. _We'll have to figure this out, working together. It feels like you're going to be here with me for a while._

Phantom nodded. He reached out to Danny, the human grasping his hand and a jolt of energy sparking between them. Danny made a note to check out what it was later.

_**You should wake up. I think Samantha and Tucker are calling for you.**_

Danny closed his eyes and tried to see himself waking up in the lab, trying to get the same sensation that one would feel when trying to shake themselves from a nightmare.

Phantom stayed silent as Danny faded from the memory plane, finally alone.

* * *

He sat down and smiled, mourning over a pain that had happened too long ago to really matter but still too fresh to ever heal.

The Birth of Beatrice into the human world was a tragic thing, as it had been only the beginning of a grand chaos.

He began to write on the new, milk-white page, his blue eyes scanning its blankness as it was reduced by the strokes of his pen.

_**Dear reader,**_

_**One may be confused in reading the tale of this boy. After all, what impact could a simple boy have on the universe, a Universe other than his own?**_

_**Reader, we may laugh in amusement as you are stumbling over the twists and turns of the importance of the introductions of this tale. You may criticise the way in which the story is told. After all, what better place to begin telling a story than the beginning? If we were to tell you that a person was angry, you would ask what led up to that emotion. That does not mean that the End justifies the Means, or vice versa.**_

_**You shall have different readers, already introduced to you.**_

_**They read you their bastardized form of Shakespeare; did you read it carefully?**_

_**Their words are**_ underlined _**like so.**_

_**They shall guide you through the tale. The question is: are they telling you the story as it happens, before it has occurred, or after all of the events have transpired? Maybe it's just a bedtime story.**_

_**Stay wary, reader, as people that lose their way, have a very hard time grabbing the Spider Web they need to climb up to Paradise again.**_

\- 芯身つ

He set down the book and held his head in his hands.

"Papa?" He turned to see his son toddling over to him from the doorway. The tot was bleary-eyed and his pyjamas were loose about his body. "Papa, what are you doing?"

"... A script, just for you."


	2. Mystery Meat

Chapter 01 – Mystery Meat

* * *

Jack smiled down at his son and his friends. "So, Danny. You and your little friends want to hunt ghosts."

"Ah, actually, Dad? I wanna be an astronaut." Danny raised a hand shyly. Sam spoke, dismissing ghosts as a common fad, one too common for her interests. Tucker waved off the idea as well, regarding his looks and charisma as much more valuable. They were individuals and would not be as strongly persuaded as Danny could be, especially when considering the fact that despite their closeness, their dreams for the future had no common ties, as they were not siblings.

**The missing thing.**

"Well, if you do want to hunt ghosts," Jack said, turning to the lab table behind him. "There are a few things you need to learn."

Danny fought his first ghosts, initially seeing his own breath and alerting him that the ghosts were coming, as they came through the Ghost Portal. His father never saw it at all.

_Thank goodness. What would have happened if they saw?_

**_… What would happen had they seen, your parents?_**

_… They'd probably dissect us._

**_Scary._**

_Or maybe not?_

Phantom stayed silent after that, wondering what Danny could have meant by that.

* * *

**What was fear?**

* * *

"I think I should tell them." Danny, Sam, and Tucker were in school, walking up to the second floor of the building.

"Why?" Sam asked with an almost disgusted tone, sharpening her tongue into a useful knife, as they continued to walk. "Parents don't listen. Even worse, they don't understand." She closed her eyes as they settled themselves onto the landing and stood for a moment. "Why can't they accept me for who I am?!"

"Sam, we're talking about my powers," Danny said, gesturing to himself with his thumb. "My problems?"

**_I'm a problem?_**

_No, just your powers seeping into my human body is the problem. You're fine._

**_… Okay._**

"Oh, right," she covered awkwardly, mumbling slightly. "Me, too."

Danny sighed heavily.

"It's been a month since the Accident and I still have barely any control!" His heart began to race a bit and he did not notice himself sinking into the floor as he spoke, "If somebody catches me, I go from 'Geek' to 'Freak' around here!"

Tucker raised his eyes and looked somewhat nonchalantly at his friend. "Kinda like what you're doing right now?"

Danny looked down and cried out, lifting his arms in surprise. Sam and Tucker grabbed him and lifted him up, his body from the waist down completely invisible until a few seconds later, his feet touching the floor like nothing happened.

"Oh, darn it." He hurried up the next flight of stairs, grabbing his head. He had a headache coming on. He needed his pills. "If my dad could invent something that accidentally made me half-ghost, why can't he invent something that turns me back to normal?" His powers activated themselves again, making him pass through the vending machine that he would have walked right into.

**_I helped!_**

_Ugh… Thanks, I guess._

Sam frowned and went to Danny, catching up and moving to stand in front of him. She saw the other return back to his tangible, visible state before speaking. "Danny, your powers make you unique. Unique is good." She placed her hands on her hips with pride. "That's why I'm an Ultra-Recyclo Vegetarian."

Tucker blinked. "She's a what?"

Danny answered him. "She doesn't eat anything with a face on it."

Tucker flaunted off his love and knowledge of meat, while Sam brought up her proposition to the teacher board.

The next ghost that Danny fought had Sam on a hit-list, as Danny saw it, for changing the menu from the school cafeteria. They had walked inside the kitchen, hoping that she wanted to do something peaceful rather than hurt anyone.

"Hello, children. Can you help me?" the Lunch Lady asked politely. She had the uniform of a Casper High School cafeteria worker, so she had probably worked here a long time ago when the school did not require hair-nets. "Today's lunch is meatloaf, but I don't see the meatloaf." She spoke one last time with a somewhat hopeful smile on her face. "Did someone change the menu?"

Tucker nodded. "Yeah, she did," he replied, pointing at Sam.

"You changed the menu?!" The Lunch Lady grew and her red eyes, menacing and full of fury, seemed to shrink. Green energy – her ectoplasm, it seemed – became flames in the air and encircled her, her power magnifying.

_Well, shit._

**_Well said._**

* * *

Several ghost fights later with the Lunch Lady resulted in Danny turning back into his human form, Sam and Tucker safe and away from the angry female ghost. He fainted, his energy gone from turning intangible, invisible, and even contorting his form. His friends carried him home.

They stepped through the door to Fentonworks, as casually as they could, taking Danny up to his room.

Why on Earth would they think that Danny's sister Jazz would be a ghost?

* * *

Danny wished that his friends wouldn't fight in front of him. It reminded him too much of how his parents fought so often when he was a child, how they separated, and how…

_I was not lonely._

**_You sound like you were._**

Danny sighed softly to himself, watching Tucker leave to "go get the meat back" and Sam rushing to stop him.

**_They're pleasant overall._**

_Yeah._

"Oh, well. I'm sure everything will be back to normal by tomorrow." He stood up and stretched, going to get his backpack off of the floor and to do his homework.

**_… Danny._**

_What?_

Phantom, inside of Danny's body in such a way that could only be described as One, pulled himself as far as he could from the other's body, only an energy around Danny, and hugged him. It was an almost non-existent touch, comforting and cool against the boy's warm skin. Strange it was that these two, lone spirits that could not be understood by others, whether by fate or nothing that could be understood, could complete each other. They were becoming very good friends and it was wonderful to know that there was someone there at night to keep the other safe. Whether from nightmares or sad thoughts, they could be brushed away. That is what Phantom felt.

Danny felt the same. After a childhood of uncertainties, this little miracle, a friend that did not judge him or express their firm ideas through yelling, attempting to impress them upon him, was special to him. It was all he wanted… aside from seeing his real parents again, but that was fickle. Companionship was above all his goal.

**It takes two.**

**Sleeping with someone you care about keeps away monsters at night and it gives you dreams about the other person.**

**How nice it must be to have that!**

* * *

Danny really did not expect his friends' protests to be spoiled by the Lunch Lady. He kind of wanted to see Meat-Eaters fight with their barbecue spatulas against the Veggie-Lovers' classic picket signs.

**_That'd be fun to watch._**

_… It would be_, he thought somewhat guiltily, though that thought was chased away when he completely registered the situation and decided to go ghost.

_**That sounds like a catch-phrase… Let's use it.**_

_How about later?_

* * *

_**… A soup container… Captured the ghost…**_

_Yep. Something my Dad actually works. Kudos to Dad._

Danny hurried over to Sam, buried in meat.

"What happened? Where's the ghost?" She looked bewildered. Danny held up the sleek metal container. Tucker had a flash of recognition in his eyes. The Fenton Thermos had been shown to him and Sam when Mr Fenton had shown them the Fenton Portal.

"My parents have their moments." Danny smiled.

"_Ghost directly ahead…_" The three teens turned and saw Jack and Maddie approaching them, the Ghost Finder in hand. The device was pointing at Danny as it had the previous day.

"Sorry, Dad. You just missed him." Danny pointed behind him, showing them the way the ghost went.

"We got a runner!"

As she watched Danny's parents take off, Sam turned to the black-haired boy. "So you're not going to tell them?"

"No." He felt Phantom's contentment swell. The ghost really did not want to be away from him. "I think I finally figured out what these powers are for."

Aside from the mandatory clean-up duty that they were assigned to, Danny was happy.

He had Purpose, even if it was a purpose that he had once mocked superheroes for doing.

Magic was not just for entertainment; it was to better one's self. He and Phantom had merged for the better, not the self-indulging. Fighting ghosts was hard, but it wasn't frightening.

It wasn't frightening at all.

* * *

**What was fear?**

**It's the feeling that you get when you see the Unknown, the Strange, the Incredible, the Different, the Unique, and the Incomprehensible.**

**It's not of this world.**

**So it must be a Ghost.**


	3. What You Want

Chapter 02 – What You Want

* * *

When he and Tucker were at the little fair in town, or rather a bazaar, Danny had not expected a genie-esque ghost to literally come out of a lamp. The ground below him as he flew was covered in a stormy sea of cotton candy.

_**Candy floss?**_

_Were you British before you died?_

_**No. I lived around here, I think**__._

"I am Desiree," the ghost said, her form quite beautiful. Danny realised that her name was a pun on the word 'desire' and, his hormonal teenage mind be damned, he could see why she would be named Desiree.

She looked to be from the Middle East in times of royalty or from India in a place Danny could akin to the Taj Mahal. She had bangles on her wrists and a hair ornament that went around her head, like a headband. Her midriff showed her pale green skin and her… womanly charm was exposed somewhat, the cleavage of her breasts showing. Her long black hair was exotic and appeared to be so silky, the sun-light bending to make it look ironically alive, opposed to her eyes, blood-red and excited.

**Freedom is indeed wasted on the living.**

She placed her hands together in a symbol of servitude. "What is your wish?"

If he wasn't ticked off by the fact that everything was covered in sugary cotton, he would have blushed. "None of your business, candy pants."

Desiree frowned, looking dejected. This was her Purpose, granting wishes. Why should this child deny her this, her Purpose?

"Surely, there must be something…" She reached out to him, her hand a bare nail – about 2 inches – from his chest.

Danny could not react, her words and expression distracting him. Phantom could, though. He projected his energy out and took control of Danny's right arm and voice.

"Hey, get away!" He did not know how he knew, nor did he quite understand how his body produced the energy, but a small orb of ectoplasmic energy formed in Danny's hand, leaving his body invisibly only to reappear in the form of that orb, in the form of a weapon.

An object used for malice…

He pulled Danny's arm back and threw it forward, the energy leaving his hand in the form of a beam. It hit Desiree squarely in her torso, sending her back with its unrestrained force. She screamed as she was pushed away, far enough that Danny didn't see her at one point.

Danny blinked. "What the heck?" He pulled his hand in front of him, his eyes focused on the glowing green energy that surrounded the appendage. "What's going on?

… _**Oops?**_

_It's fine… How did you do that?_

_**I don't know.**_

"Is this…" Danny wondered out loud. "A new ghost power?"

Malice, the ultimate weapon…

"That was slamming!" Tucker yelled up at his friend. As Danny floated back down, he continued. "Whatever that was. You got another power?"

"I guess." Danny remained above the ground, holding his hand up. It wasn't hot or anything; the energy was actually kind of cold.

"Man, see, that's the cool thing about your powers, man. There's no downside!" Tucker raised his hand up in excitement. "Give me five!"

Danny raised his hand, but he didn't expect Tucker to be blasted away with the ectoplasmic ray.

_Phantom?_

_**I guess some energy was still in your hand?**_

_We'll figure it out._

"I'm okay!" Tucker yelled, his body in the cotton candy again. The tarp over him ripped and spilled more spun sugar onto his body.

* * *

That night, Danny volunteered to sub in for the Casper High Ravens' mascot. The guy never got to see the games in the stand and it would be nice to do.

He didn't expect Dash Baxter to turn into a monster or for Tucker to end up in the raven suit… like he usually was. That Desiree was just causing more problems than her beautiful was worth.

_**Is she really that pretty?**_ Phantom voiced his thoughts as Danny put the ghost that had possessed Dash into the Ghost Zone.

_Shut up. _Danny looked around the lab. It was warm in the lab today, a sweat hut set up in a back corner. It reminded Danny of a Native American abode. Strange.

As the ghost disappeared into the green vortex and the doors closed, Danny flew back towards his room, only to pass through the new invention his parents had made. It wasn't painful…

… Just very unsettling.

_**Danny!**_

_Phant-?_

"Whoa!" Danny cried out as he fell. The floor was so hard, its tiles cold against his cheek. He opened his eyes and saw green eyes staring back at him. "Huh?"

The ghost stared back at him and then went back into his body. Phantom let his energy spread again and Danny let out a shuddering breath, fear running through his blood.

That was frightening.

Not the fact that a ghost was technically possessing him, but that he could have lost his friend. He'd be alone again.

"Ahchoo!"

* * *

"Ahchoo!" Sam curled up deeper into her blankets, her skin so pale and her body sweating, attempting to purify itself of its ills. "Ugh! I feel like I'm gonna die. I hate being sick."

Danny held the phone to his ear as he heard his friend sneeze again. "Hang it there, Sam. Tucker and I are gonna come visit you when we're done at the mall. You want us to bring you anything?"

She sneezed again. "No, no, please. Don't bother. My folks are taking pretty good care of me."

It didn't surprise Danny when he heard Sam insist to other people there – most likely her parents and anyone they hired to take care of their daughter – that she was fine, that she just had a cold. He was a bit shocked when he heard an AED operator charge up some paddles threateningly.

Amity Park's strip mall was rather small, but the movie theatre in it was enough to make it pretty entertaining.

Danny walked alongside Tucker into the theatre, going intangible when he was about to walk into a trash can. "She's gotta be sick if she's missing **Dead Teacher IV**_._"

Tucker nodded. "'This time, it's personal.'"

Two girls were admiring the **Sayonara Pussycat** display not too far away. A third girl, Paulina, came up and admired it as well, a bit envious.

It's as though envy isn't a bad thing.

"**Sayonara Pussycat **is so cute! Why can't I be that popular?" She asked it to no one in particular. Yet close by was a certain ghost. Desiree let her power surround Paulina and let the girl change in something akin to the anime cat.

As Paulina began to spread her influence of anime chibi-ness, Danny and Tucker stared at her with some slight disgust. This _was_ a girl that they had fantasized dating a few times.

"Tucker, I –" He stopped as he took the Fenton Thermos out of Tucker's hand, who was resigned in his expression.

"Do what you gotta do. I'll get seats." The beret-wearing boy walked off, Danny not noticing his sadness.

Danny felt his body go into its ghost mode, most likely taking on the appearance of Phantom's true form, and flew at Paulina.

No wonder it's a Cardinal Sin.

* * *

Danny sighed as he left the movie theatre, his ghost sense going off again. Looking around, he saw Desiree again, the female ghost quickly flying away.

"Jeez, lady, don't you ever take a break?" His attention was also caught by the flying car in the air-

"Flying car?"

_**That's not normal?**_

_Shut up. _As he went to attend to that, he heard Tucker's voice, right under him.

"Don't worry, dude. I got this."

Danny stopped flying for a moment, just to float. "Tucker?"

_**Something ominous. Why would Tucker ever want ghost powers?**_

_Let's ignore the 'why'. What about the 'how'?_

* * *

Danny sighed. He should have known that Tucker would just want the ghost powers for the fun, the entertainment that he could conjure up for himself whenever he wanted. He had wanted to do that in the beginning; with Phantom, he wasn't lonely and he could enjoy himself more than he had for a long time. The justice in life kicked in though. If Spider-Man hadn't listened to his Uncle Ben, would New York have been overrun by a kid with spider powers, haunting the world with cobwebs in the face?

Those were just powers, though. Danny sometimes felt a hole in his chest. It had intensified during the accident with the ghost portal and he had asked Phantom about it.

_**You're looking for your Purpose**_.

_I thought-_

_**You'd find it on your own… I might be a part of your Purpose, but I do not know what it is… I'm sorry.**_

Had Tucker not found his Purpose either? Well, they were only fourteen, babes in the eyes of adults and barely conceived embryos in the eyes of witches.

Maybe it was not the best time to think of things like that. He'd talk to Babazita after school.

* * *

Danny sighed, sniffling. Sam's cold was a strong one, he'd give it that. The park was relatively empty and the wishing well was clear. Well, it was a fountain, but beggars can't be choosers.

"If you're trying to snag a wishing ghost, what better place than a wishing well?" He felt clever, something not felt in a year. Shame what psychological pharmaceuticals can do to an eager mind. His quarter fell into the water, breaking the blurry reflection of the boy that it had been casting, and nothing occurred.

"Dang it," he muttered before sneezing. He turned to walk away but didn't get too far before another man muttered a wish before dropping his coin into the crisp water. Danny's ghost sense went off and he turned to grab the man, his grey suit covered in Desiree's smoky energy, away from the harem woman's ghost.

"Oh, no, you don't," he protested, his now green eyes glaring at his foe. Phantom's powers were coursing through him, his senses heightened in compensation as his human body grew more weak fighting his cold.

Two halves always attempt to compensate in a manner such as this.

"Young intruder," Desiree scolded in a venom-laced tone, her form completely green and practically featureless before solidifying itself in the body that Danny was beginning to recognize. "You dare to interfere with my spellbinding?"

"Money isn't everything!" The man Danny saved ran off screaming. You would think in a town with ghosts always on the loose that people might want to defend themselves, but people are not so predictable.

"Listen, Desiree," Danny said firmly, turning to the ghost woman. "I want you to take away Tucker's ghost powers pronto."

"I cannot," she said in certainty. "By noon tomorrow, your friend's fate will be sealed." She cackled and Danny felt anger boil in his heart as she spoke. "His jealousy will transform him forever into the most powerful ghost boy in the world!"

"Tuck? He's not that jealous. Is he?" His resigned expression from the movie theatre, his trying to get back at everyone that made him feel bad at some point and pranking kids that didn't have what he had – ghost powers. Was that how Tucker saw him – flaunting his abilities that he gained from an electrocution accident? What he had seen as a curse and then a blessing, Tucker saw as an unfair advantage.

"More than you know. Tomorrow, his jealousy and frustration will cement into rage and rebellion. He will be complete." As she began to fly away, pleased and smug, Danny grabbed her by her tail. This was his universe. No one would ruin it.

"You change him back!"

Desiree turned with cold, rage-filled eyes. Danny could swear he had seen that expression before. She looked as though some powerful memory had come upon her, ripping open something that she had long since cast away in the recesses of her mind. For a ghost of a harem, he could imagine what she had faced in her living days, a thought emphasized as she spoke.

"You dare lay a hand on me? No man may lay a hand on me unless I wish it!"

His heart panged, but he ignored it. Her actions were not justified.

"Yeah? How about a fist?"

* * *

The next day, when Tucker went through the Fenton Ghost Catcher, Danny felt every bit of jealousy leave Tucker's body. It was a strange sort of release, like saying good-bye to a dead relative as the gravediggers finally lowered the casket. In this case, it was a human, one that Danny had such a strong connection to, and he never wanted to lose that.

Danny remembered something from when he was small. Tucker had mentioned how cool it was that his parents stayed at home, all the time; he never had to wait to be picked up from school. Danny knew how to work a computer and how to shoot a gun before Tucker even thought of those things.

Tucker, in turn, became the most tech-savvy of the three of them once middle school came around.

Tucker had been envious the whole time.

"Danny, I'm really sorry." Tucker looked as if he were going to cry, feeling guilt over everything that he had done and what he had unintentionally allowed Desiree to do. "None of that would have happened if I wasn't so jealous."

"Or if I had been a little less of a show-off around you." Danny held out his hand.

"Friends?"

The other boy's hand held his tightly.

"The best."

_Phantom, we're going to have to be way more careful._

_**Okay.**_

It was the first restraint that Danny placed on Phantom that the ghost did not see as justified.

* * *

The Scriptwriter and his son were playing in the park outside their home. The tot was playing in the sandbox, getting his small hands dirty with his play.

The writer smiled and looked down at his books. Reference materials and notebooks sat on either side of him, all for the sake of his son's script. He looked down at his list of the Decalogue and saw the last of the ten.

Tenth Term of the Decalogue - "You shall not covet your neighbour's house; you shall not covet your neighbour's wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbour's"

You ask this of humans?

The Scriptwriter sighed, hearing the readers of his script read aloud the Tenth Commandment over his shoulder.

That seems to be a joke.

"I guess it does." He called out to his son. They were finished with the park for the day.


	4. Bitter Reunions

Chapter 03 – Bitter Reunions

* * *

"You shall not covet your neighbour's house; you shall not covet your neighbour's wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbour's."

…

**What if the neighbour coveted?**

* * *

Danny saw his home not too far ahead, his electric scooter hurrying him along. He and Phantom had been out for most of the night, looking up more things about ghosts and how exactly to confront them without causing so much confrontation.

"Finally. One day where I don't miss my 10 o'clock curfew." Only five minutes to the said time. He'd avoid getting lectured, something only his magic teachers had done and it was quite uncomfortable for Maddie and Jack to do so.

He gasped and saw his breath. Of course, a ghost would come just as he was getting home from a long day. Of course…

_**Maybe it won't be hard.**_

_Hopefully._ A powerful human in magic, he might be, but Danny knew his limits. He drove his scooter behind a van and cried out his battle cry. Phantom had realised that through many of the books that they read, a witch or other supernatural being needed a vocal form to summon their strength should they wish for the largest, most beneficial effect. Humans did it often during forms of martial arts, claiming that it aided them into driving more force into their attacks.

Danny, his ghostly tail emerging, flew up into the sky towards the vultures that had been going through several homes moments ago. "You fellows look lost. Um, any chance of you staying that way?"

"Mind your own business, fancy-pants ghost boy!" The vulture with the fez hat and sharp beak scowled and quickly led his two companions, a vulture with sunglasses and a vulture with a smoother beak, down to rest in a passing bus. Danny quickly followed and observed them. They were like arguing adults at his mother's family reunion, with the way they were fighting.

"We've been circling this town for hours!" The sunglasses-wearing vulture griped. "We coulda been half way to Flor-Ida by now. Ask for die-rections."

It was kind of funny how they spoke, but he kept a straight face and continued to listen.

"I know vhere I'm going!" the leader protested, his shoulders hunching.

The third vulture waved his wing like an arm, as though attempting to wave away his cohort's smug attitude. "You so do not. Ask him!"

Danny blinked, the wing pointed at him. "Ask me what?"

The ghost birds flew up and stayed at a level quite a bit above the buildings of Amity Park. They remained stationary as they patiently waited for the ghost boy to meet them there. When Danny came to their level, the leader came forward.

"Ve are on a search-and-destroy mission." Danny crossed his arms and processed the words, a look of hesitance in his eyes. "Could you help us find, and peck to death, this guy here?"

Danny blinked after the vulture held up a part of a photo. The piece was not at all in good condition, having been forcibly ripped from its original form and some light damage had been done to it, fluorescent lighting diminishing its quality and blurring the fine lines of the face within it. It was still recognizable and it struck a chord of caring and concern in Danny's chest. The hair, he had not seen in years in the style portrayed in the photo, but the eyes were still the same navy blue, hopeful about life. The strength in them was youthful, but a dash of wisdom was held there in the blue eyes.

"Dad?"

* * *

Danny sighed, pulling out a book to read from his backpack. The bag was filled with books that his birth mother had left him. He had been a bit too young to understand them at first, even with the magic that he had thought he had known. The witch that taught them could not figure it out, even with her 1000 year knowledge and her education.

_„A witch specializing in Eastern magic cannot comprehend the arts of Western magic and vice versa. Only few witches can obtain the ability to control both. This requires energies of both to unite, which done improperly can lead to destruction of the subject itself."_

"How is it that you goof up-" Danny looked over at Jazz. She was gripping the seat underneath her, clearly agitated. "-and I have to spend four days jammed in the Fenton Ghost RV?"

As Jack began to boldly praise his invention, Danny felt somewhat suffocated. He should have expected some part of the RV to spray ectoplasmic goo when he pressed the button he thought was for windows, though he did smile inside when it landed on Jazz's face. He did not waver at her threat.

"I'll get you for this."

_„Witches are prisoner to the anti-magic toxin. Properties of this toxin are more clearly described in Chapter 8, but to put it bluntly–_

_„The Anti-magic Toxin can kill a witch. Human witches have the ability to withstand this, but the time that they can resist it is determined by the Witch's own strength. It is highly effective against ghosts and exists as a green energy."_

* * *

Vlad Masters smiled, standing in the doorway. He saw and heard the RV pull up to his castle's front door, the vehicle silver and green in the colours that he knew Jack grew terribly fond of in college. Out of the aesthetic class that he had years ago, Vlad had argued that their Proto-Portal be blue instead. As the family got out of the RV, he came out of the shadows, his black suit prim and proper.

There she was… with her idiot husband and her children.

When he had been called twelve years ago, being told that he would be the godfather of Maddie's son, his heart felt so torn. Every knife-edged scalpel, every hypodermic needle, every pained thought, memories from the hospital, lying in bed as he stared up at the anti-bacterial white ceiling; those painful feelings wrapped around him again, strangling him. The child had no sin, so young, so fair… as fair as Maddie was.

So he never suspected that the child might not belong to Maddie genetically.

The family approached, Vlad dismissing all but Maddie.

"Jack," he greeted.

"And Maddie," he said with far more pleasure than the first name. "You've never looked lovelier, my dear. Come in, come in."

Vlad wrapped his arms around Maddie, her daughter, and… Daniel, was it? He closed the door on Jack and smiled to himself at hearing Jack remain confused outside.

Jazz began to criticise his decorations. Shame… Didn't Jack introduce Jasmine to football?

"Jazz, hello?" Daniel scolded playfully, as though Vlad's home décor decision should be obvious. "Football helmets, jerseys, cheese-heads; he's a Packers fanatic."

Vlad smiled. A bright boy, he thought, ruffling his hair. Also, very familiar looking. "Oh, 'fanatic' is such a negative word, but yes."

Jazz remained skeptical. "I don't understand. You have billions of dollars. Instead of buying this stuff, why don't you just buy the team?"

"Because they're owned by the city of Green Bay," Vlad griped, "and they won't sell them to me!" He pouted somewhat childishly and then recalled that Maddie was there.

"One of two things my wealth has not as of yet been able to acquire." Maddie smiled weakly.

That small smile, it would grow into one of joy and love, Vlad knew. It was destiny. He would repair the wound left on his heart from the call that he received in the hospital, an invitation to be the Best Man at Jack's wedding… His wedding to Maddie. It was so painful.

He didn't see Danny furrow his eyebrows somewhat, puzzled by their interaction.

* * *

Danny sat on the couch in one of the studies that Mr Masters had allowed them to use. Jack and Maddie were arranging their things while Jazz looked through some old film reels that she had gained interest in. It seemed that she was getting vaguely interested in football.

"…"

"I'll grab another book a bit later, but I want to finish this one first," he said softly to the air about him.

"Reading alone, Daniel?" Danny looked up and saw Mr. Masters standing by the door. He nodded and looked at the man. If he really wanted to, he'd stand up and greet him in Japanese, but Danny felt that it wasn't necessary. He only did that when Maddie and Jack had already introduced him as their adoptive son, something they hadn't done in years. He had liked to embarrass them at parties that way.

"Yes, Mr. Masters." Vlad came over and asked what he was reading. "1984 by George Orwell."

"That's a strong book. Are you enjoying it?"

Danny nodded. "I like Winston's characterisation. He sounds like a lost teenager, hearing the guy at the bar talking about pints of beer and hearing that other guy talk about the church."

Vlad chuckled. "That is very true. Have you heard of Brave New World by A. Huxley? He wrote of a dystopia, much like Orwell did, but his world took a different turn."

Danny shook his head. "I'll try and find it at the library when I get home-"

Vlad never thought he'd lightly curse Maddie, mentally, though, for interrupting their conversation. Daniel seemed to be a very nice boy, though shy and sensitive to criticisms, as he hid the book under one of the couch pillows when his mother approached. As he watched Daniel's attention turn to his mother with curiosity, Vlad felt the pang of longing inside of his chest.

The same blue eyes, slight frame, the form he had loved for a short time; long enough to make a mark on his heart, but not to dissuade his love for Maddie.

"Danny, your father and I need help getting something from the RV."

"Yes, Mom."

Such a nice boy… Much like how he used to be.

* * *

Danny dreamt that night of two powerful things, not entirely certain of what they were. They were in the form of people, but it was more of a humanoid shape. Their eyes were bright and glowed with an antagonizing aura.

"We have seen it all come to pass. Shall one more Time hurt the present? The Precious Gift?"

One was dressed in white and Danny couldn't tell if it was a man or woman. Probably a woman, as the form was in a dress, it seemed, but its voice was deep, a threatening voice, with a hint of honey for baiting one to come with a breath's distance.

"Show the Maker's face, the Board overturned and, in its Anger and utter Sin, destroyed!"

The last creature, dressed somewhat like a Catholic priest, all in black, was still and had a somewhat softer voice. Perhaps it was the air about him or Danny's own apprehension, but he both wanted to get away from and to come closer to that creature. Its voice was deeper than the one what was in white and its tone spoke volumes.

"The Sin hath paid, the Board righted, its cost of Execution. Time for the Penance! Let die the Hatred and bring forth the Just Punishment of dear and glorious Armageddon!"

Danny felt his body run cold and with that, he awoke. His strange dream forgotten, Danny only paid attention to his Ghost Sense, his breath visible in front of him.

"Just what I need; a working vacation."

* * *

Danny, in Phantom's form, hushed the ghost that inhabited his mind. The other was usually so guarded, it was interesting to hear him practically incoherent when he woke him from his slumber.

_**Going on?... Was ist das?**_

_A ghost is here in the Masters Castle._ Danny hummed as he thought over what Phantom had said at the end. _You speak German?_

_**Deutsch? Um… I guess I do.** _The realisation spread through their linked minds in a certain degree of shock. Phantom could speak German and he had some connection to Amity Park… and Danny. Maybe they could find out who he was, a long time ago. The ghost went back to sleep, his power in Danny's body now.

Danny smiled to himself as he floated down intangibly and saw his father chased by the same ghost vultures that had been after him in Amity Park. Once he got him to the bathroom, Danny came up behind the ghosts.

"Hi, guys. Remember me?" He punched his right fist into his left palm, hopefully appearing tough. What he didn't expect was for the vultures to shriek in terror and fly away, disappearing into the walls.

"Okay, that was almost too easy."

"Ah! Bright boy!" Danny turned and felt fear wash over him. It was a ghost, of that he was certain. What he was unsure of was the reason he looked like the daemon in his dream. His red eyes stared down at Danny, a feeling of superiority emanating from his ghostly aura. The white he wore was somewhat ironic to the ghost boy, such pure connotations of the colour that he had read from all of his books, yet seeing the white-clad ghost, he felt threatened at his most basic mental level.

That would not best him.

"Oh, whatever." He came closer to the ghost. "I was aiming for the birds, but you'll do."

Danny raised his fist and intending to punch the other's face… He didn't expect his fist to be caught, the larger black-gloved hand trapping his white-clad one. He cried out as he was thrown against the wall. If Mr Masters saw the mess, what would he think? As he slid down, he landed on a stone bench. His hand came to rest on his head, trying to orient himself.

"Whoa. Fast," he spoke to himself. "Alright; Better stop fooling around." He flew again at the ghost and gagged as a hand clamped around his throat. His enemy threw him down to the ground, Danny's back making painful contact with the hard floor.

"My vultures were supposed to bring the big idiot to me, but you'll do." The vampire-looking ghost spoke down to him, teasing him through mimicry. "Danny Phantom, right?"

Danny tilted his head. He gently thought to Phantom, trying to wake him.

**_Wha- Who is he? How does he know us?_**

_I… don't know._

* * *

"You… You know me?" Phantom took over, hushing Danny, and asking their question. This ghost seemed familiar to him somehow. His appearance was frightening, but his voice was like that of a teasing mentor. Danny could only process the fear, not the familiarity. Above all, Phantom was wondering how the other was aware of him.

"Of course, I know you!" The ghost slipped through the wall to the library, prompting Phantom to follow. The books were welcoming, but the ghost boy knew that they held no answers and had no entertainment for him now.

"You're the ghost boy who uses his powers for good! How quaint." The older ghost was making fun of him, taunting the rules that he and Danny both held dear. It reminded Phantom of some of the books that Danny read, books that were required for his faster-paced, supplemental Social Studies class – Ethics. He remembered in one of Danny's readings about Friedrich Nietzsche.

_„You look up when you wish to be exalted. And I look down because I am exalted."_

Phantom frowned. That was definitely this man's thought.

The ghost came close and Phantom instinctively backed away. "Aren't you going to try and shove me into your ridiculous thermos?"

"I… I don't want to fight you!" This ghost was powerful, pure energy radiating from his core. Phantom couldn't fight him… he couldn't.

"No. No you don't." The ghost blasted him with an ectoplasmic ray, its colour pink. Phantom yelled in pain as his body made contact with a table, knocking everything from its surface, and stopped against a bookshelf. The books scattered and Phantom gripped the table in front of him to quickly get back up. As the ghost came close, he shot his own ray.

"Get away!"

A translucent shield blocked him. His enemy merely laughed. "Ah, an ectoplasmic energy blast." He yawned, moving his shield to block the other blasts. "So… Year one." After Phantom stopped, seeing the superfluity of the attacks, the blue-skinned spectre came close and said, "Tell me, child. Can you do this yet?"

The ghost duplicated himself three times, four ghosts surrounding him. The teenager floated away, concerned for his and Danny's body.

"No, I can't! How are you doing all this?"

"Years of practice," the clones spoke, their voices in unison. "Which you, unfortunately, have no time for."

Four energy rays lit Phantom's form with a pink light, the energy burning him and draining his energy. Phantom curled into himself in pain. Danny was still asleep, making it easier for him to focus, but Phantom could only wonder of the repercussions of this battle.

The ghost duplications dissipated and left the original smiling at his power, his black-gloved hand smoking with bright pink energy.

Phantom was only aware of pain for the rest of his time conscious. Punches hit him in sensitive areas, his joints and parts of his head. His own attacks missed or scarcely left a mark on his foe.

After the last punch that his pain-racked body registered, Phantom went intangible and passed through the wall, back into the hallway. The floor was unforgiving and with that last thought, he passed into unconsciousness, letting the transformation rings pass back over Danny's body… He could only hope that the ghost paid no mind to his friend.

* * *

Another half-ghost. Another like him!

Vlad felt such joy in his heart… something he had not felt in over twenty years. Ten years spent in and out of that hospital, fifteen years training, bettering himself, making him far more superior than any mere mortal man, and creating the greatest part of his life, only to have it taken away.

Daniel was such a bright boy, not well understood by his parents and he could see why. As he had taken the boy back to his room, Vlad had spied several bottles of prescription medication. Prozac and Seroquel XR for depression, Abilify in combination with the other two for the depression.

Vlad could recall a few things from biology and psychology. Abilify was also an anti-psychotic. Somewhat ironic for ghost hunters to have their child on that pill. Sometimes only children could see ghosts, spirits that equipment could not detect. Or perhaps Daniel was seeing something else?

Something not ghostly, only children being susceptible to seeing them, perhaps. This just made Danny far more special, more necessary to nurture and facilitate to grow!

He would learn more about the boy in time, just as Daniel would learn to enjoy his fatherly company in time. Yes, Daniel would come to him for guidance! Daniel seemed alone in his universe, his sister dismissing many of his thoughts and his parents most likely unnerved by the things that their second child "saw".

Vlad would no longer be alone. They'd fill the holes in their chest with each other and no one else would be needed. Maddie would come along, of course, but for the first time in almost thirty years… Vlad was not consumed by passion and lust, whimsical longing. Only love, familial love.

Daniel would become his son, Madeline his wife, and they would be happy in their universe together.

He'd finally get the family that he had been looking for for twelve years.

* * *

Danny sat in the same study from the previous day, his bookbag at his feet. He was reading with Mr Masters again, the man's company rather pleasant.

"So 'love' was what they were trying to eliminate in 1984?" he asked the grey-haired man. Danny had gotten far enough into the book that he was trying to pin down Winston's crime. Of course, he was going against the government, but what was his sin exactly?

Vlad chuckled. "That's your theory?"

"…"

Danny blinked. Surely he had found the answer. "Yeah. They eliminated the need for enjoyable sexual contact, the use of the word 'love,' and similar things. They want to be rid of love as an opposing force. I mean, it makes people to crazy things."

Vlad smiled. "You are quite intuitive for your age, my boy. Humour me a moment. Say we are in a debate and you need to use a quote in your support for love. What quote would you choose?"

Danny bit his lip for a moment and pulled out a notebook that he had in his backpack, turning to a certain flagged page. "'_There is no shame in being hungry for another person. There is no shame in wanting very much to share your life with somebody._'"

"...Is that Augusten Burroughs?"

"Yes." Danny smiled at Mr Masters. No one had sat with him like this in years, not since his tutor died two years ago. He certainly enjoyed Sam and Tucker's company, but they seemed so focused on their own interests that Danny could not impress his own on them, not as they did upon others. Sam's magic was limited to her interest in reading the subject, not its usage, and Tucker devoted himself to technology.

Where did his own magic fit in?

"Your parents-" Danny listened intently to his father's friend. "-weren't too fond of subjectivity in literature in college. They read science journals and textbooks, always looking for more factual knowledge and their way to spread their influence outward…"

Vlad moved from his armchair and sat next to the boy, not too close. "Ghosts interest you, but you would rather not dissect them, would you?"

Danny froze. How should he answer? "Uh… No, I wouldn't."

Mr Masters chuckled. "No harm in speaking your opinions and beliefs, child."

"No one ever seems to listen." Danny stayed silent as Vlad stood to get a book from one of the four shelves in the room. He opened one and smiled. Danny spied the cover and it seemed to be a scrapbook of sorts.

"How about a quote, in support of adolescent minds, little badger?" Danny nodded, taking the nickname in stride. Apparently, it was the mascot for his parents' and Vlad's college football team. Considering how much the man loved football, the nickname was a good thing, then, he so figured.

"'_I find it really offensive when people say that the emotional experiences of teenagers are less real or less important than those of adults._

"'_I am an adult, and I used to be a teenager, and so I can tell you with some authority that my feelings then were as real as my feelings are now.'_"

Vlad saw the boy's eyes, bright and blue, gain a spark. Perhaps it was the feeling of acceptance, but Vlad could just feel happiness from the teen's core. He would have to learn how to hide his ghostly aura from- No… He'd never have to hide again.

"Who said that?"

"John Green. He's a rather popular writer these days, I hear."

Danny smiled and continued to read, Phantom content as well. They'd found a nice person, a nice adult, after wandering alone. They had each other, but it was nice to add a friend to their Universe.

* * *

Danny had been pretty tired for most of the day; up until the reunion, he had rested in the study, finishing his book.

That night, Danny went along with his parents to the room where the college reunion was being held. It was spacious and decorated in a rather nice way. Danny spotted a man with cheesehead and sighed a bit. Would he value his college days like that? Hopefully, it wouldn't be as embarrassing as his parents pogoing to New Wave music.

He was at one of the tables with a punch bowl on it, having talked with Miss Harriet Chin until something else caught her interest, and straightened as a hand touched his shoulder.

"Well, son, you're looking much better," Mr Masters observed. He continued, "I was wondering, if you could do me a huge favour."

"Oh, sure, Mr Masters!" Danny answered. "But call me 'Danny'. 'Son' is what my dad calls me." He smiled.

"Oh, yes, yes, of course. Now, could you go to my lab, second door on the right upstairs? There's a present in there for your father that I'd like you to bring down." Did the child not sense any malicious intent from him? He was still innocent in the ways of Man, something Vlad found both puzzling and endearing. The boy read books like 1984 and still he was so innocent and trusting. He would teach him the ways of the world, so that he would not be hurt.

"Okay." As Danny got up and went to do his given task, Vlad turned to the dance floor, seeing Jack pogo and Maddie watching in scrutiny.

"Maddie...That lab accident cost me my youthful chance at you, but that's all about to change..."

* * *

Danny opened the door to the lab and didn't find it surprising that it reminded him a bit of his parents', Vlad being their college buddy on the paranormal and whatnot. He looked around and was confused.

"Present? I don't see a present…" He continued walking into the room, hearing the door slide shut behind him. As he went further in, Danny spotted a photo frame. He approached and was looking at a black-haired, eighteen-year-old Vlad Masters, his smile sincere and youthful. Next to him was an eighteen-year-old Madeline Martin, eighties' style hair-do up and large hoop earrings in her ear lobes.

A large corner was torn from the photo, the only visible part of the third person in the photo part of the orange-

_**Orange jumpsuit?**_

"Hey, wait a minute..." Danny reached into his suit jacket and pulled out the scrap of photo that he had gotten from the ghost vultures. Laying it against the glass of the frame and making it fit into the crack between the wood and glass, making the picture look whole again.

His father's visage completed the photo, sending a pit of denial into Danny's stomach.

"Oh, no. No way." His ghost sense alerted him and distracted him from the photo for now. Phantom's power surged through him and the transformation rings passed over him.

Danny screamed as he was pulled up to make eye-contact with two ghosts, the Ecto-Pusses that he had beaten and fought back into the Ghost Zone. "Hey, let go!"

He kicked one away and grabbed the other by the tentacles that had a grip on his arm, flying back down to the ground and slamming its head against the lab floor. Its gelatinous form couldn't maintain itself and it disappeared as a smoke, leaving Danny's hand.

"Those ghosts… They were two of the first ghosts I fought."

"And they're not alone, pup!" Skulker's net wrapped around him faster than Danny's focus wrapped around Skulker's words. He hit the wall and felt electricity run through the fibres of the netting, his vision blurred until Skulker stepped into the light.

"Skulker?" He broke out of the net and kicked the other, making the ghost ram into some of Vlad's equipment. "How did you get back in your Ecto-skeleton? What are you doing here?"

"All excellent questions. Catch!" A black cube slid to Danny's feet. He gasped as the cube seemed to expand and wrapped around him, his body from the neck down encased in the object. Phantom's thoughts, his instincts, were suppressed, made completely silent.

"Hey! I can't phase out of this! It's disrupting my powers!" Danny didn't pay attention to Skulker pressing a button on his wrist, shouting as more electricity coursed through him, the pain exhausting his reserves and returning his body to its human form. The teen, feeling somewhat ill, let his head fall forward, hitting the surface of the box surrounding him.

Skulker, smirking as his prey was fully weakened, came and grabbed his head, yanking it back and letting a glowing blade come out of his left wrist.

Danny yelped in surprise and stammered for a few moments before chuckling awkwardly. "The glowing blade is new!"

The hunter smiled. "You like it? I've had some upgrades." His gaze became predatory again, hungry for blood. "Now-"

"Enough!" Both turned to see Vlad Masters, standing as though he hadn't walked in on an almost slaying, but rather on an employee who had been doing something inappropriate while on the job and needed a stern talking to. "I didn't free you to kill the boy, Skulker. Your work is done."

Skulker looked at Danny in confusion and reluctantly pulled the blade back into his wrist. "Yes, well, I-" The PDA that was still programmed to Danny's old Purple-Back Gorilla Research schedule chimed in Skulker's wrist. "I've gotta go to the library and checkout a book on a gorilla..." He pouted in annoyance. "Again!"

As the hunter of all things rare and unique intangibly flew out of the lab and out of the castle, Danny turned his attention back to Vlad.

"Skulker? The Ecto-Pusses? I don't understand!"

Vlad felt exasperation well within him. Surely the child had lost some innocent thoughts of the world, so trusting and naïve.

"Of course not! You're, what, fourteen?" As he spoke, he walked towards Danny, around the cube, and away again. "Too young to drive and not in college yet! I sent those ghosts, and others, to test your father's skills. Imagine my surprise when I find you; the second ghost hybrid his foolishness created!"

Danny's blood chilled. "'Second'?" Danny couldn't believe it until the black transformation rings from the man completely altered his appearance. Vlad Masters was no longer his friend. Just the enemy of his family, his father… his first friend.

"You?!" He exclaimed, "I'm going ghost!"

Nothing happened.

"I'm going ghost!" He looked down at himself. No HAZMAT suit, no white hair. "Why can't I go ghost?"

Vlad chuckled, amused. "You have a battle cry, hilarious. I, on the other hand, have this." he gloated, walking forward and patting Danny's cage. "A spectral energy neutralizer; designed by Skulker, paid for by me. And as long as you're contained within that box, you're as human as your idiot father."

"Let me out of here!" Jack was his father, his parent that took such good care of him and accepted him for what he was – a freak. Even if he hadn't told him that he was half-ghost, Jack had accepted him before. When he had looked at the grimoires at the library, Jack had not questioned it, only asked him not to perform anything that could be harmful to anyone. As he grew older and began to have problems in socializing normally, Jack comforted him and had taken him to the therapist when he asked, never questioning him. He helped him practice instead.

Jack would just smile and wish Danny all the luck in the world, wanting him to be as happy as fate would allow anyone to be.

"Why? So you can go back to stumbling through your adolescence, desperately trying to get control of your powers? Powers, by the way, that I've had for over twenty years." Vlad began to demonstrate some of his powers, something that the boy had shown interest in: the idea of having power.

"I have experience, my child. And the money and power attained through using those powers for personal gain, you see."

He split himself into three bodies, smiling at the child's silence. Was he figuring out the offer? "I could train you, teach you everything I know."

As he united into one again, Vlad presented the offer bluntly. "And all you'd have to do, is renounce your idiot father."

Danny glared at the other, with an "Are you kidding me?" look. "...Dude, you are one seriously crazed-up fruit loop. That is never going to happen."

Vlad harrumphed. "Yes, well, once your father is out of the way, we'll see how you'll feel." He laughed in a way that sounded demonic and quickly teleported away.

Danny felt, for the first time in not so long, useless.

Dad had said that Vlad had been in the hospital for four years; then there was twenty years of no contact. He had to help his father.

It wasn't his fault that Vlad closed his heart.

* * *

After the Dairy King had set him free, Danny transformed quickly. Phantom stayed silent, feeling his host's desperation. Nearing the reunion host room, he heard his father's voice.

"If you live to tell the tale, remember that big, fat Jack Fenton did this to you!" Danny felt vengeful. This was his family, his domain, his universe, and no one was allowed to mess with it.

"Guess again, cheesehead."

Danny flew intangibly through Jack's body, pushing Vlad out and pushing him back into the library where they had first fought, according to Phantom's memories. Vlad quickly dodged the punch that Danny threw at him in rage, giving him a chance to kick the boy away.

"Daniel, stop!" He floated above the floor, in a stable position, not to be easily knocked away. "Think about the things I could show you. The doors I could open for you. You, Danny Phantom, and I, Vlad Plasmius. Together we could rule!"

"Forget it, pal. Your money can't buy my mom, it can't buy the Packers, and it can't buy me!" A green ectoplasmic ray from Danny was caught by Vlad, the energy storing itself in an orb in the older half-ghost's palm. He pulled it with his other hand, letting the same amount of his own energy build in the same attack. Once done, he fired it back at Danny, who quickly threw up a hemispherical shield.

Danny glowered at him. "I know who you are. I'll tell my father. I'll tell everyone."

"And so will I," Vlad countered. "Honestly, if you expose me, you expose yourself."

Danny turned his head at the sound of RV's horn. He jumped out of the way as the Fenton Family Ghost Assault Vehicle/RV came into the library, busting down the doors. When it pulled to a halt, Vlad saw his chance. He turned his arms intangible and reached for Maddie.

"Mind if I cut in?" Maddie gasped and felt her body become intangible, a tingling sensation, as though her entire body had fallen asleep, spreading through her.

"Let go of me!" she ordered, once pressed against the blue-skinned ghost's chest.

"Never again, woman!" he sneered. She would be his. It was destiny!

Danny picked himself up from the rubble caused by Jack's reckless driving and saw his father running to retrieve his mother. "Maddie!" Jack cried, fearing for his wife's safety.

Danny flew into the RV, invisible, and sat in the driver's seat, ignoring Harriet Chin and focusing on the fact that he was going to drive this bulky vehicle. "Oh, great. It's a stick."

He shifted the gear and pressed his foot to the gas, his grip on the steering wheel white-knuckled; that is, if he was visible. He almost steered into Jack, prompting a cry of warning from Maddie to her husband.

"Sorry, Dad." He positioned and parked the RV so that it was facing Plasmius. "I've got one shot at this."

The steering wheel shifted into its battle mode, two handles with buttons, almost like those of an old video game controller, in its place. Danny aimed and fired. The first attack, Vlad just knocked away. Lightning, Vlad phased through it. The ectoplasmic goo hit him though, Maddie falling out of the air.

Danny flew into Jack's body, overshadowing him and catching his mother.

"Jack, you did it!" Maddie beamed at her husband, making Danny proud of himself.

"It was nothing, Mom." He realised his mistake and quickly went to correct himself. "Uh, Maddie! Sure, heh, Maddie." He set her down, asking her to check on Harriet as he "finished this". He went to Vlad, smirking. He hadn't won. Danny had, and he would submit to Danny's terms for sure now.

Gripping Plasmius by the collar, he lifted him up from the goo. "How's it going, V-Man?"

Vlad stated mockingly, "Ooh, you've overshadowed Jack. Ooh, I'm so scared." He raised an eyebrow. "What's next, a card trick?"

"Listen to me," he ordered softly, firmly, to the older man. "I swear I'll walk out of my dad's body and expose us both, unless you call a truce."

Vlad stared at him. "You're bluffing!"

He brought Vlad close. "No, I'm not. My parents will accept me, no matter what. But if I expose you...Well, heh, what would my mom think of you?"

Vlad grimaced. Maddie had hated ghosts for so long, viewing them as subjects rather than sentient beings. She would despise him!

Danny set him down. "You'll be miserable and alone for the rest of your life. Unless you call a truce."

Vlad remained frowning, but to Danny's surprise, he smiled again, as though not thrown off by this unfortunate circumstance on his part. "Using your opponent's weaknesses against him. I am teaching you something after all. Very well. Truce. Eventually you will join me by choice. You and your mother. But for now..." He cleared his throat and took to the ceiling.

"CURSE YOU, Jack Fenton! Your world-renowned expertise of all things ghost has defeated me!" He smiled to himself and muttered. "...Until next time, son."

He cried out, turning his body to mist and disappearing.

Danny had to credit him on the acting.

* * *

Danny pulled out his book and one of the flashlights from the glove compartment. His sister and mother were asleep in the back and his dad was completely unconscious from having the energy completely taken from him today. Being overshadowed and then having to sort everything out with the Madison police department must have taken its toll, finally. An added factor to his father's heavy sleeping might have been the sadness at his friend not bidding him "good-bye"; if Jack had only known…

Danny pulled out his 1984 book and read silently, his pages lit by the passenger overhead lights. Only until a certain paragraph did he whisper the words out loud.

_"…'O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself...'"_

Danny stared at the page.

No. That would not be him.

Never.

* * *

The Scriptwriter set down his pen and laid his head on his desk. He looked over to the bassinet where his son slept and then down to the last line he wrote. He heard one of his readers in his head.

Never is a very long time.

"I guess it is." With that in mind, the Scriptwriter picked up his son, being careful not to jostle him awake. "We'll sleep in my bed tonight. Just so I can cherish what may never happen again."

His son didn't stir when his father pressed his lips to the child's forehead.


	5. Prisoners of Love

Chapter 04 – Prisoners of Love

* * *

Danny was reading through one of the grimoires that normally were kept in one of his drawers again, humming to himself as the chapters became more difficult. He yawned and vaguely remembered that he had to take them back to the library soon. He was not allowed to have these books, or any books about magic, anymore.

He found one about the history of witches and witch-hunting. Ghosts and witches were similar but not the same, which was the foremost thought in Danny's mind when he saw the photo of a painting done in Danvers, Massachusetts, - formerly Salem Village - of a man by the name of John Fenton-Nightingale.

Danny blinked at that. Why would that occur? A family of witch hunters turning to fight ghosts, solely ghosts? Strange. Maybe Jack knew about it.

He brought his book along and saw his father working on a new invention. It looked like some kind of vehicle, though it was floating above the clean, tiled floor.

"Dad, can I ask you a question?"

"About the Specter Speeder?" Danny felt some indifference grow in his heart and show itself on his face as his father began to rant. "Sure!"

Danny grunted when he was practically thrown into the vehicle, the large windshield stopping him from falling out of the vehicle. He listened, with mild interest, to the features that the vehicle had been installed with. Ghost plane exploration could be useful to him at some point… and admittedly, so could the super-size cup holder.

Footsteps alerted both Jack and Danny to Maddie coming down to the lab, her hood on and goggles over her eyes.

"Jack, dear," she called, sugar on her tongue. She waited for him to get out of the Speeder before continuing. "It's getting awfully late. Is there something you might have forgotten today?" she asked in a hopeful tone. With Jack's clueless noises and expressions, she kept giving him hints. "Something significant? Having to do with today's date of September 9th?"

Danny tilted his head. This conversation seemed somewhat familiar… September 9th… Wait, the lab calendar had "Happy Anniversary" drawn over it! Oh, shit. Did Dad forget?

"Ninth, ninth, ninth… Ninth! Ninth?" Jack mumbled as Maddie looked over at the calendar, focusing on the picture of her and her husband's wedding cake topper, miniature Jack in a jumpsuit and mini-Maddie with goggles on and wearing her mother's wedding dress and veil. "Nope, still not catching your drift."

"Our anniversary, dear," Maddie said, finally exasperated. "Oh, well, I guess it just slipped your mind…

"For the eighteenth year in a row!" Maddie slammed her fist on the rear propulsion system of the Spectre Speeder closest to her, kick-starting the ship.

Danny cried out as the ship began to head into the Ghost Portal, the green, eerie universe so full of energy that it was overwhelming his senses. He had never had such energy around him all at once. Phantom's powers felt like nothing compared to this… and it was scary. That become an understatement as a large white form appeared in front of the Spectre Speeder, Danny collecting himself enough to slow down to a stop, his grip on the two handles yoke firm. The ghost had a white trench coat, black gloves, black hat, and a black belt. He held the posture and authoritative voice of a police officer, or a jailer.

"Trespassing in an unauthorized vehicle; that's against the rules."

"Sorry," Danny replied, shaking at his tone. It reminded him of someone… "I didn't know. I'm from… Out of town."

"Ignorance of the law is no excuse for breaking it, punk." He came close. "I see your face around here again, you and I are going to have a problem."

Danny nodded and awkwardly saluted with a "Yes, sir," placing his hand on the transmission and setting the vehicle to reverse, zooming out of the ghost zone and back into the lab. The teen was shaking out of anxiety. That ghost, that officer, reminded him of someone, someone that he feared and would rather never meet again. He slowed his breathing down gradually, enough to hear his mother's last argument to his father.

"Now get this into your head, Jack Fenton. There are some things more important than hunting ghosts!" She hit the propulsion system again, making the machine turn off and giving Danny enough equilibrium to get out of the Speeder. Shaking in fear did not stop his mother from going upstairs, angry and jealous, and did not stop his father from being oblivious as always to his distress.

"I know, I know; I'm just as freaked out by your mother's reaction as you are."

Such a captivating chaos in the Fenton household.

* * *

Danny sat on the couch reading, just to be in the presence of his parents. They were arguing back and forth, as though it were Christmas, but over a more serious topic.

Devotion and appreciation that can be seen is common in families. Presents are given on anniversaries of births, marriages, and other happy occurrences. Kisses are given between spouses and hugs are given between siblings. Laughs are shared between friends and teachers praise their students.

Maddie had not felt appreciated for many anniversaries, for all of the years that she and Jack, her long-time friend and love, had been married. And it hurt her deeply.

Danny sighed. His mother would get over it, as she usually did. He just didn't notice his mother leaving out the door with a suitcase, her husband chasing after her.

"We discussed this, Jack. Remember?" she asked sardonically, rhetorically. "Visiting my sister? The divorce?"

Danny had by that point been walking out of their front door, hearing the tension escalate so rapidly, He stopped. The word.

Not a word of God, but forbidden by the Word.

"There's a casserole in the freezer right next to the ectoplasmic residue samples!"

"Divorce? What?" Danny felt his heart pounding. No, that didn't happen. After what had happened before, Mom and Dad swore that they wouldn't leave each other. They would work everything out, every issue, grievance, and disagreement, and stay together. He heard Jazz approaching, and he saw her stepping down their stoop. "Jazz, did you just hear that?"

"Hear what? Mom yelling at Dad?" Jazz gazed back at him with disinterest. "Relax, she'll get over it."

"Yeah, but I-I have never seen her so mad…" He hadn't in years. He didn't find any solace in Jazz's words and he stopped trying to, until Jazz began to freak out after their father left for Arkansas to apologize to Maddie.

"Jazz, are Mom and Dad gonna split up?"

"… I was… Wrong?"

* * *

The school bell rang and Danny couldn't calm his heart down. Phantom was so drained from trying to calm the boy down.

**_Calm down, friend. It's okay, I promise you._**

_Their universe! They're willing to-_

**_Humans are like that. Idiots. It won't happen though. Humans need another to survive, someone to build their universe with. Jack and Maddie understand each other and yet miss when they try to send messages to each other. They are still very young._**

Humans are a young species. The more mature the Human, the less Human they are. Universes only need two to exist, but the Two are vital.

_… Ugh… Let me get Sam and Tucker's perspective, okay?_

**_All right. You have nothing to worry about._**

"You should have seen them fighting," he said out loud. Sam and Tucker were not aware of these split-second conversations he would have with Phantom; then again, they didn't need to know. Phantom was his secret until he went ghost. "My folks never fight." He paused at that.

"Well, they fight ghosts, but that's different." He wouldn't mention their break-up from eleven years ago. That was private.

"Danny, relax," Sam said soothingly. It was normal for Danny to get emotional, but never like this. "Nobody gets divorced over not getting a gift." This brought Danny back to his problem: tossing his father's anniversary gift into the Ghost Zone by accident.

"But it's the thing my dad's going to use to apologize. They're right on the brink!" The hand that she had brought up to his shoulder went back down again. "I'm telling you, anything could set them over the edge!"

"Danny, you're fine," Tucker reassured. "I mean it's not like your mom actually said the word 'divorce.' I mean, if she actually said the word, then you'd have to worry."

Danny froze. "She said the word."

_**Tucker… I hate you.**_

Tucker, realising what Danny just said, stopped walking, rethinking over his words. Maybe they weren't the right ones.

"Oh, man," Danny whined. "She did! She said the word!" The last sentence slipping off of his tongue, Danny's hands were wringing in the air, the stress getting to him.

"Tucker, say something to calm him down," chided the Goth girl.

"Well, uh, did she say it twice?"

* * *

Danny, in his ghost form, with Phantom scolding him about wandering the Ghost Zone without caution, sat in Warden Walker's office. He had already seen that Skulker, Technus, Desiree, and the Lunch Lady were at the jail when he and the Box Ghost were transported there. It all happened so quickly, like a blur. Walker was walking right in front of him, but he felt so little now, so young, that he stayed silent.

"Trespassing, loitering, creating a disturbance, and," he listed, reading from his rule book, "possession of Real World contraband."

The present passed by and Danny just reached for it. It was the only reason that he had come here in the first place. The chains on his limbs, however, were far too heavy.

"Excuse me, sir, b-b-" The large hand of the ghost gripped his striped prison uniform.

"Name's Walker, son. Know it; fear it; obey it." He lifted the teen into the air. "I am your Judge, Executioner, Jury, Executioner, Jailer, and if necessary, your Executioner."

"Uh, you said 'Executioner' three times."

"I like that part of the job."

Danny blinked at that. What was with these Ghosts?

_Are you homicidal like that?_

**_I sure hope not._**

… I find this ironic.

* * *

When Danny finally got past all of the guards, his enemies making temporary alliance and all of them free, he flew to Walker's office, hearing an irritated voice.

"Guards! What's going on down there? Somebody answer me!" Danny kicked open the doors.

"How about saying 'please'? Saying 'please' is a rule."

"It is?" When Walker opened his rule book and began to flip through, Danny jumped towards him and closed it on the finger turning the pages.

"Is now." He quickly scanned the room and saw the pink-wrapped box, its blue bow in perfect condition. "The present!" He flew for it… and felt a large hand wrap around his ankle and throw his body to the ground. The ghost warden stomped down on his torso, a rib giving in only slightly, but painfully enough to be a concern to Phantom. Danny normally didn't care about his injuries, a dangerous thing.

"Now let me acquaint you with a few rules." Phantom took over for only moments, his hands gripping Walker's boot with a small plea of mercy in his eyes. It was unheeded. "Rule one: You cross me, you pay the consequences." He accentuated that with driving the heel of his boot deeper into Danny's stomach, making Phantom groan.

"Rule two: Just because you're a ghost, doesn't mean I can't crush you within an inch of your afterlife.

"Rule three: -"

Phantom had new respect for Sam and Tucker once they came into the room, and Danny thanked his friends many times once they were back at Fentonworks, his father's present in hand.

Danny and Phantom never heard the third rule.

Danny had been nervous at jumping out of an airplane, but seeing his father's pride and happiness was nice and calmed his stomach. The parachute began to fall behind him, his sister's behind her, once they touched the ground, the present secure in his hands.

"He kept it at home, so the mosquitoes… wouldn't get it?" He explained it awkwardly, knowing that it was a horrible lie. However, Jack leaned over and whispered.

"Good boy. You're getting a raise in your allowance for this."

"I have an allowance?"

Danny listened as their parents continued to speak before presenting his more dire question.

"So you guys aren't getting a divorce?"

Maddie scoffed. "Divorce? Who said anything about us getting a divorce?"

Danny smiled to himself. The Universe was safe. Sweet normalcy.

* * *

The Scriptwriter looked to his son and wondered if the babe ever thought of his other parent. His son babbled to the servants and they indulged him. They bestowed blessings, benedictions on the sweet, innocent babe that they cared for and loved.

The Scriptwriter turned at the sound of his name.

"Yes?"

His blue eyes gazed into those of the piece that he was writing about.

"Who are you, and why do I dream about you?"

The Scriptwriter smiled and waved his gown about in a welcoming manner as he bowed.

"You'll find out in due time, dear Reader."

* * *

Danny woke up.


	6. My Brother's Keeper

Chapter 05 – My Brother's Keeper

* * *

Danny was walking through the hallways of Casper High, heading to class like any other student. It was when he saw his breath. His ghost sense now active, he looked around, making sure that no one could see him, before jumping into a locker and transforming.

The ghost was a strange, pickle-shaped form, mostly likely an ectoplasmic coagulation shape. They exchanged blows, Danny throwing some ectoplasmic energy at him in the forms of rays. It was only when footsteps were approaching that the ghost growled at him and phased through the ceiling.

Danny let the white rings slide over him, reverting to his human form, and blinked as he turned to the opening door, seeing his sister's shocked face and Mr Lancer's disappointed scowl.

Danny felt a sadness in his chest. He could have beaten the ghost, but he didn't. "Good one, Fenton. You let him get away, you idiot."

* * *

The office that had been destroyed by Danny's fight belonged to that of Miss Penelope Spectra. She was rather attractive, her eyes a brilliant green and her body curvaceous. She was also the only teacher that Danny had ever seen with sunglasses and a devil/Wolverine hair-style. It amazed him, though, that she wore a pencil skirt down to the middle of her thighs and still turned down the heat, making it colder than before.

"Of course! I find that cold temperatures keep the mind icy sharp." Spectra explained as she began to organise the crooked pictures on the wall behind her desk. "And don't you worry about this mess of an office, either. Stuff happens!" She sat down after making her chair upright again, smiling. "No biggie. Right, Jasmine?"

Jazz exhaled gently and wasn't surprised to see her breath in the cold. "It's Jazz. My friends call me Jazz." She crossed her arms, as though stating it as fact.

"Yeah, well, your brother calls you 'fink'!" She turned to Danny, who was standing between where she was seated and Mr Lancer.

"Danny, I'm just trying to help." She was capable enough, old enough, and their parents barely noticed anything. "Come on, we used to talk all the time."

Danny scoffed. Talk? When they would "talk", he would tell her about magic, something that she would always deny and demean him about believing in. They never "talked". "Yeah, when I was eight and you weren't a fink."

"That's more than enough out of you, Fenton," Lancer chided, placing a hand on Danny's shoulder. "Get to class while Ms Spectra and I decide what your punishment is."

Danny turned to scowl at his sister and promptly stomped off.

Lancer smiled then, pride in his stance. "Unlike her brother, Jazz is one of Casper's best and brightest. She'll be giving the keynote pep speech at our centennial Spirit-a-thon on Wednesday."

"Right on! That's why I'm here," Spectra assured and encouraged, gesturing at the photos on the wall behind her that she had righted only moments ago. The teenagers in the photos seemed so tired, depressed, daresay lifeless, with Spectra looking just as enthusiastic as she did now. "To pump up the pep, one student at a time."

"Jazz, Dr. Spectra is a highly respected motivational speaker and teen therapist. She's agreed to help 'pump up the volume' on that old Casper High spirit this week." Lancer smiled. Spirit Week would be phenomenal.

Something else was on Jazz's mind, after she had awkwardly greeted Ms Spectra's assistant Bertrand. Danny had always been a quiet kid, even when they first adopted him into the family. He'd only ever talk about the paranormal or other silly things, like magic. When the Ghost Portal had started working, Danny grew even more quiet, more reserved, than before. All of the neglect and the lack of encouragement that they were suffering from their parents' obsession must have finally taken its toll on him, making him the moody, surly teen with such a dark outlook on life that he was becoming.

She began to listen again as Spectra said, "Dominos represent how each person's spirit affects the next person they touch. Slammin', huh?"

"If by slammin', you mean weird, then yes."

Lancer looked nervous, anxious. "And the spirit sparklers go off afterwards...right?"

"Oh, you bet they will." Spectra reached into one of her desk drawers and pulled out two sparklers, the little fireworks sparking cheerily against the cold of the room. She jumped onto her desk, pep in her step. "After all, what's Spirit Week without spirit sparklers?"

"You know, you're a little over-peppy," Jazz began, "but my brother might benefit from talking to you. But he's so mad right now, he'd never listen to me."

"Yes, well, he'll listen to me." Lancer laid a hand on her shoulder, giving her reassurance.

* * *

Danny pouted, his head in his hands. The chair, labelled the 'Happy Chair!' in all of its irony, was hard beneath him, uncomfortable. He listened to Phantom's voice, the ghost trying to encourage him. He had a small headache.

**_We tried our best right?_**

_All I ever do is try. I can't do anything right._

**_Shall I strike up a contradiction? You, first off, can go ghost now without accidentally letting your pants fall, as you did before._**

_My grades are lower than I'd like._

**_A sacrifice, sadly. You are doing so much good for the town, though. Even if they don't accept our help, or fully comprehend it, you have helped many and that's what matters._**

_… Fine. You win for now, just because Spectra's done talking to Paulina._

"Danny, come on in!" Spectra greeted and welcomed the teen, letting her eyelids fall slightly. He was so sorry for himself, or at least so very miserable. How sad for a fourteen-year-old boy.

Danny took a seat and wrapped his arms around himself, shivering. "I can't believe my stupid sister convinced Lancer to make this my punishment. And can we please turn up the heat in here? I can see my own breath!"

"Wow, you _do_ complain a lot. Hm," Penelope smiled and shrugged. "Well, your sister did say you could be a bit of a baby."

Danny stared at her. "What?!" Would his sister say that? She had teased him often as a child; whether for his slight accent as a young child, his interests, or his later dream about being an astronaut, Jazz would tease him, and it would hurt.

"Sweetie, it's not your fault she thinks you're a loser." She smirked to herself. Danny was already full of self-loathing, it seemed. It just made her job easier for her.

"Wait, Jazz called me a loser too?"

The therapist held her hands up defensively. "Hey, those are her issues." She stood up and walked over behind him. "I'm not saying you're a loser, Danny. I think you're a great kid!" She put her hands on his slumped shoulders, and they slumped further still.

"Then why do I feel so miserable?" He couldn't do anything right at all, could he? His sister didn't care about him in positive regard. She was so perfect and cheery. Why couldn't he be like that? He exhaled quietly, tired, as Spectra took her hands off of him.

"You know what I think? You might be a mess," she started, coming to the front of his seat and bending down to meet his eyes. "But 'mess' is just the beginning of 'message'! Now go out there and be a better you."

Danny felt his headache get worse once he bumped into the wall on his way out.

* * *

Danny was eight years old when it happened.

It had been monstrous, something that he couldn't understand given his age, yet it had happened to him all the same. One day, he would challenge God about it, why it happened to him, but for now, he sat in the doctor's office.

Maddie was holding him in her lap. Why was her little boy, her son that should have been perfect and happy, so sad? Jack had found him playing with scissors, the tips of his fingers bloody where they had run themselves against the blades. When they asked him why, he simply replied,

"Are all humans the same on the inside, just like me?"

They made a promise between the three of them: Never tell Jazz how bad Danny was really getting.

* * *

"Dude, you ok?" Tucker and Sam were walking along with Danny in the hallway to their next class. Danny seemed so down all of a sudden. He looked so… dark.

"I'm fine," Danny negated. Despite the frown on his face, he denied his foul mood. "I can't believe my sister told that shrink I'm a loser."

Sam looked at him in disbelief. "Are you sure Jazz said that? That doesn't sound like Jazz to me."

"Hey, you guys." The three friends looked up to see Jazz, looking concernedly at her younger brother. "What doesn't sound like Jazz to you?"

She sighed when Danny scowled at her. Defiance was in his eyes, like it usually was. It practically resided inside of her brother, like a festering wound that would not close, pus spilling out of it. "Still mad?"

He blinked and held a hand up as though in awe, a finger curled against his chin. "Wow, you are the smart one." He resumed his scowl and glared at her.

Jazz felt some anxiety flare up inside of her. Why didn't he want her help? He never wanted her help anymore! "Danny, I know you're angry, but I'm worried about you. Ever since the accident—"

"Jazz, I know you _think_ you're helping, and I'm sure when I'm older I'll appreciate it, but right now, I don't." He wouldn't need help from anyone.

**_? Except me, right?_**

_Yes. Now be quiet please. My head hurts… So badly…_

"You have to talk to somebody, Danny." Jazz felt that parental side of her take over. What had happened to Danny? Why was he so surly and anti-social and just so pitiful?! "You barely have any friends."

Sam and Tucker frowned. They were certainly good enough friends, to their understanding, and Danny had never complained about them.

She had seen them frown and really, she found nothing wrong with how they acted with her brother. "Besides these two," she assured. "And you have absolutely no extracurricular activities."

Danny grimaced, throwing his hands up. "Well, maybe this is me now, huh?" He withdrew, drawing his arms to his chest and crossing them. "Not everyone's pumped up full of spirit all the time, you know."

He stopped short, cold washing over him. He saw his breath and gasped. "Ghost sense?" he said softly. "I don't see anything."

"Danny?" Jazz came close and put a hand on his shoulder. Ever since he had stepped into the Fenton Portal, shocking himself, according to Tucker and Sam, he would shiver, get into more trouble at school, and his alibis for certain times of the day would be completely suspicious. Was someone hurting him? Was that why he was so secluded? "You're shivering."

He pulled away from her and ran. "Leave me alone!"

He didn't need anyone else. He didn't want anyone else!

No one could know!

* * *

Jazz stared after her brother, appalled. "It's worse than I thought." She almost ran after the younger Fenton, but a hand grabbed her arm. She turned and saw a random blond boy, probably a freshman, holding her. He was pointing down the hallway, fear in his eyes.

"A freakishly large hornet!" He screamed and then jumped into the locker nearest them, unfortunately closing it on his leg. "Ow, my leg!"

Time seemed to freeze as indeed, what the boy said, a large hornet, came at her. She screamed but was frozen to where she stood. Everyone else in the hallway had run, but her moment of weakness let her be captured by the bug, his legs on her, holding her, as its tongue-like proboscis licked at her face.

"Back off, ghost bug!" Both Jazz and the hornet looked up and saw a jumpsuit-clad boy with white hair, pale skin, and green eyes fly towards them, his leg extended into a kick. The hornet let go of the girl and was kicked into the next room, both boy and insect phasing into the next room.

Jazz stood for a moment. "Ghost bug? Wait a minute, that was a ghost? That was two ghosts?"

* * *

Danny glowered at his foe, standing across from him when they were on the lawn in front of the school. "Somebody called for an exterminator?"

The ghost hummed mockingly. "My, you are clever, aren't you? Swat this, big boy."

Danny threw up his arms as the ghost came at him, his stinger aimed at the boy. The stinger burned as it cut through his skin, making him cry out and curl up a bit on the ground. He wasn't so concerned with the pain, as he was with the fact that he could've avoided such a careless mistake.

"I should have gone intangible. Idiot," he scolded himself. Despite Phantom's earlier praise, Danny could see the truth. "I'm not getting better at this. I'm getting worse."

Danny threw up a shield as his opponent came back again. He reached for the Fenton Thermos. "Alright, pal! Time for you to—" The ghost had disappeared. He lost his chance to capture it. "Gone. Great. Another bad guy gets away." He flew up, feeling so very tired again, all the adrenaline that had been in his system gone. "Maybe Jazz was right. Maybe I am a loser."

**_… Danny-_**

_Save it. Please._

**_…_**

Phantom was quiet for the rest of the flight back to Fentonworks.

* * *

Danny stared at his sister for a moment. She was looking at him in disbelief.

"What do you mean, you didn't see a ghost?" she asked.

Danny answered back, "It didn't look like a ghost to me. It just looked like a big bug. So I ran. Like a loser." He elongated the "o" in "loser" and said it bitterly.

"I was right." Jazz had her hands together, fingers interlaced. "You're not going to listen to me, are you?"

"Nope." He smiled to himself.

"Well, you don't leave me any choice." The redhead brought her hand to her mouth and called out to her parents, raising her voice and making sure that some urgency could be heard. "Mom! Dad! Can I talk to you about Danny?"

"What?" She couldn't find out! "Jazz, no!" He turned and they saw their parents zip into the kitchen doorway. Jack was holding a new weapon of some kind.

"Is there something wrong with Danny?" Maddie asked.

"Is there a ghost involved?" Jack inquired.

Danny flinched away when his mother came close, questioning "Is there something you want to talk about?"

Jack merely repeated his question.

Danny bit his lip, stuttering. What could he say? "I… I…" Wait, what had Jazz said earlier?

"Actually, yes. Jazz thinks she saw a ghost today." He grinned and turned his gaze to Jazz. "Tell them, Jazz."

She looked trapped, betrayed somewhat. He could remember seeing that face in the mirror.

The talk turned to Jazz and ghosts, leaving Danny a perfect opportunity to leave with a pleasant, "Well, enjoy your chat!"

She wouldn't need to know.

Danny could feel the bed sheets burn beneath him. He was eight years old again, having his usual nightmares. His nightlight was on, but it provided no comfort, no temporary shield against the darkness. His stuffed fox was gone, and so was every bit of power he thought he had possessed.

Fingers ran through his hair and he was comforted slightly, though the fingers disappeared, as they always did, when footsteps approached the child's room.

"Who..?"

Danny ducked beneath the covers and shuddered in fear. A large hand touched his back through the blankets and he ripped them off, launching himself at his father.

"Daddy..!"

Jack sighed. "Danny, did you have another nightmare? I thought I heard someone talking…"

Danny looked up again at him, blue eyes tear-filled. "Daddy… I'm scared."

His father smiled sadly. "Ghosts haunt everyone, son."

"Ghosts?" Danny tilted his head. He remembered the magic from long ago, all of the magic that his teachers had taught him. Magic to be happy, to not feel scared or lonely; he couldn't use it anymore for some reason, but magic and spirits were intertwined. Why would a ghost be haunting him? He voiced this.

"Ghosts aren't just spirits; they're bad memories." Jack adjusted them on the bed so that the boy could be seated in his lap.

"Those bad memories turn into a person-looking monster." He pet Danny's head. "They're just memories in you now. Don't be afraid, okay? I'll keep you safe. Me and your mother."

Danny smiled shyly and hugged his father. "Thank you, Daddy." -

* * *

"And this is supposed to help me how?" Danny shivered slightly as he looked down at himself again. After he had somehow pulled the fire alarm – that's what he had been told – he and Ms Spectra were assigned to a few more therapy sessions together. Somehow, wearing knee socks, a diaper, a "SPIRIT" sash, and a giant top hat was therapeutic?

"We're gonna help you overcome your fear of being called a baby." Spectra looked quite proud of her work. She kept smiling as he sat down.

"I'm not afraid of being called a baby. I'm afraid of...being called a loser."

"Ahh, and therein lies the problem. You care too much what other people think."

The door opened suddenly and Spectra stepped to the side to see clearly who was walking through the door. Dash Baxter and two other football players came in carrying boxes.

"Where do you want us to put these banners up, Ms-" Dash stopped his question and grinned. "Hey guys, check it out. It's the Casper High Spirit Baby."

"Of course." Danny slumped. This wasn't a surprise. His life was unfortunate enough already, it didn't catch him off guard for this to happen. He felt Spectra placed a hand on his shoulder, and he felt just a bit colder.

* * *

"Man," Tucker chimed, stopping from licking his strawberry ice cream to address Danny. The trio was at Elmer's Pharmacy and just relaxing… Well, he and Sam were relaxing with ice cream/tofu cone, while Danny just glared with enough power to kill things. "It was brutal making you wear that stupid baby suit. I could hardly watch. Though I did get some good digital pics." He showed off the pictures, trying to lighten up the mood.

Danny grimaced. "Hey, whose side are you on, anyway?"

"Danny, come on, you know he's kidding." Sam felt uneasy. Danny wasn't usually like this, not this… angry… and upset.

"Ah- Yeah, I know." Danny dropped his head and hid in his arms.

"I don't get it," he said a bit suddenly. "Why am I so depressed and angry all the time? That shrink was supposed to be helping me. Ever since I started talking to her, I've been feeling worse." He sat up and his friends could see the lack of the spark of life in his eyes. Even as a ghost, incongruously, he had more life in his eyes than their current human form had.

"Hey Danny, how's it going?" The boy turned a bit to see his sister, only to prompt him to turn away again.

"Like you care. Just go away, Jazz."

He gasped, seeing his breath.

"Oh, no."

* * *

The second fight was harder than he thought it would be. The giant leopard was taunting him in so many ways that he couldn't think straight; all he saw was red and all he felt the apprehension whenever something else in Elmer's Pharmacy was destroyed.

_Another ringing endorsement for the town screw-up._

**_You won't listen to me, will you? _**he heard Phantom ask, but he didn't want to answer. _**I think that something bigger is going on... Try to eat and rest before anything else. I'll handle the fights and anything else that comes our way.**_

Danny picked at one of his peas, letting his fingers twirl the fork back and forth. His dinner was mostly untouched, only a bit of milk swallowed down and the mashed potatoes mostly formed into a small cloud. His drumstick had gone cold already, but he really couldn't bring himself to eat.

He didn't want to eat. He didn't need to eat. There wasn't any bit of hunger in him, and he couldn't imagine actually having to consume something. It would just make him feel filthy inside.

He looked up, feeling eyes gazing at him and met Jazz's turquoise eyes. "What?"

"Nothing," she replied, coming close, examining him. He twitched as her fingers pinched his arm, his hand letting go of the fork.

"Ugh! What?!"

"Nothing!" she stressed, looking a bit guilty. "Uh, so, uh, Danny," she started, watching him rub the arm that she just pinched. "I know I've been kind of hard on you lately, but you know I think you're great, right?"

He scoffed and looked away. "Yeah, right. That's not what I hear."

"Then you've heard wrong." She looked sincere. "Look, I know you think I'm pushy and I'm a know-it-all. I know you think I can be a jerk sometimes..."

Jazz looked at him and saw a content, pleased smile bloom on his face, like he had been waiting for this.

"...You know you can stop me at any time."

Danny kept smiling, answering, "I know."

She sighed. "All I'm saying is, I'm your sister and I care about you." She put a hand on his shoulder and tried to make her words express all of her feelings. "And even though you don't think I'll understand, you can talk to me about anything."

Could he? When Mom and Dad said not to?

Would she understand and still love him like before?

_**You can still try**_, he heard Phantom whisper, encouragement flooding his voice.

"Um..."

The two Fentons jumped when they heard a sudden crash from the living room. They ran over to the small, window-like hole in the kitchen wall that let them see the living room. Maddie and Jack were both standing over one of their sofas, the furniture piece now smoking and its inner springs exposed and charred. The cloth that was remaining was smoking from what occurred with Jack's invention, the Fenton Peeler.

Jack smiled, excited. "I'm just saying, if we can find that ghost at Jazz's school, we're gonna peel that ghost like an onion!"

Maddie looked at him, disappointed a bit and still eager. "Well we can't completely vaporize it. Don't you want to at least examine the remains?"

Danny stared at the couch and felt himself tremble slightly. His skin hypersensitive out of instinctive fight or flight, he felt Jazz's hand on his shoulder. He shrugged it off.

No, she'd be like their parents and think something was wrong with him.

"I don't feel like talking about it." He heard Jazz behind him, not totally hearing what she said, but he didn't move when her lips pressed a kiss to the top of his head. He blinked.

Kisses were spells of love and protection, a promise of understanding. If Jazz did that…

He looked after her, smiling a bit. He'd keep his end of the spell, but then again…

"Oh, gross!"

* * *

Sam stood with Danny and Tucker at the blue-eyed boy's locker, watching the students walk by. "Uh, is it just me, or is this the worst Spirit Week in the history of Casper High Spirit Weeks?"

All they could hear was the sound of sad voices, depressing thoughts, and just a tune of hopelessness as the students of Casper High walked through the halls of the school.

Danny closed his locker and sighed. "And to make it worse, we're all gonna have to sit through Jazz's idiotic speech when she tries to put the "I" back in "Spirit!" or some other nonsense." He spotted her coming down the hallway. "What the heck is she so happy about?"

The sad part was…

* * *

Phantom curled against Danny's mind. He could see so many of Danny's memories and he knew what the sad part was.

Danny used to be just like Jazz. Phantom could only wonder what had turned such a happy little boy, one who felt loved and loved his family with all of his being, into such a surly teenager.

There were certain memories that Danny didn't allow Phantom access to; those took form in blackness floating through the white space that was their shared, mental abode. No matter how much he wanted to help his friend, Phantom had promised not to touch them. He could see the rest of the colors, the blue, silver, and golden, that floated in Danny's space.

Phantom looked at his own space. There were not many crystals, as his memory was short. He did have one thing, though, a hint of who he had been.

A picture.

A person with a ponytail, a black shirt that billowed out at the forearms and knee-length socks that matched a black knee-skirt, graced the portrait. Her body, or perhaps his body, as the subject stood with and carried an air of masculinity that coincided with feminine features, was lithe and powerful.

If Phantom could find this person, maybe this person was strong, powerful, capable of helping Danny overcome his struggles.

Something told him, however, that he wouldn't be able to find her.

He sighed and journeyed through the memories that he had decided to research. The fight that had begun Danny's appointment with Dr. Spectra (which was odd as Danny already had a doctor to talk to), the slime monster that could turn into a hornet and leopard apparently, and even Dr. Spectra herself. When had she arrived in the first place?

Phantom took a reflexive breath inward; Spectra had not been on the list of faculty at the beginning of the school year, yet everyone accepted that she was somehow here.

_**They would have announced this, considering the number of fights that have happened this year. Dash could have been sent to that without any detriment to his athletics roster. **_

Noticing a brighter light, Phantom turned to a memory that Danny was activating on his own, the one where he was wearing the baby costume that Spectra forced him to wear.

_"I kept thinking I was seeing my breath, that I was cold; but what if that's my ghost sense? What is Spectra is somehow making people more miserable? What if… she's a ghost?"_

Phantom turned around. A new shard of memory was glowing on Danny's side. It was a lovely silver and he reached to touch it. Spectra's cold room and noticing Danny's breath flashed through his mind. Spectra was a ghost?

_"Only one way to find out."_ Phantom shook his head as Sam's words ingrained themselves on the memory, and thus into his own. This could end badly.

* * *

"I hate my life."

"I hate your life more."

Spectra waved at Sam and Tucker as they left her office, their faces pale and deathly, their eyes lifeless.

"Buh-bye! And remember, there's only an 'I' in 'misery' if you spell it that way!" She smiled and slammed the door behind her. She focused on the energy in the room. It glowed green and vibrant, swirling about her head. Its scent was pungent, delicious, she noted. As she breathed it in, she felt her youth return to her, her body rejuvenated once more.

"Ahhh. Man, that's good." She perched herself on her desk and gazed down at the folders on the desk. They were the student profiles of Samantha Manson and Tucker Foley. "I'm gonna miss these kids. They're a waterfall of misery." She said that with satisfaction coating her words.

She looked up when she felt another presence in the room, smiling when she saw it was Bertrand.

"There you are. You hooked up the device?"

The green blob of a ghost flicked his wrist downward. "Of course. And when the spirit sparklers go up, vaporizing the only chipper kid left in the entire school, there'll be enough misery and anguish in that room to keep us looking young forever!"

Spectra smiled, glee filling her from head to toe. Both ghosts jumped a bit as they heard the school bell, dismissing everyone to the Spirit Assembly. She smiled, clasping her partner's hands. "Well, there's the bell. Shall we go hear a speech and bum some more kids out?"

As the two became one orb of ecto-energy and phased into the hallway, assuming their human forms, they didn't notice Danny become visible with a worried expression adorning his face.

"Jazz!"

* * *

Bertrand smiled at Spectra, anticipation in his core. "After we've destroyed everything, you up for a cappuccino?"

"Ooh," his companion answered. "That's a marvellous idea—"

Bertrand grunted in pain as an ecto-blast seemed to come from nowhere and hit him squarely in the chest, knocking him down. Spectra looked after him and then back to the direction where the blast came from. There floated a white-haired ghost kid in a HAZMAT suit.

"I figured it out, finally." He spoke with antagonism in his voice. "You feed on misery, don't you?"

* * *

It unnerved her a bit how he said it so bluntly, Danny could see. Not many ghosts like her, the dead physical form of a psychiatrist's sadistic qualities, were easily figured out. Those that lived on in memory would be immortal, a Witch, a God. The moment someone stopped remembering them, they'd be a Ghost. He didn't expect one that could manipulate one's view of reality as severely as she id.

That would be the reason as to why Mr. Lancer wasn't bothered by the obvious age that Spectra should be; whatever hold she had over the minds and hearts of others, it was from her constant feeding.

"I'm sorry," she said, chuckling lightly. "Can I help you?"

"No, I'm sure you can't. You can't help anyone except yourself." He jumped up and then turned to float behind her when she lunged towards him, eyes full of hunger and malice.

"You find that one thing that a kid's most afraid of – their future, their looks, their confidence –" He stopped himself, or rather Phantom stopped him. He was supposed to be a ghost, an unattached ghost that was going to help the students of Casper High; he should not connect himself to her personally. He continued, puffing out his chest a bit. "And you pick at it and pick at it while your snippy little ghost assistant feeds on it!"

Bertrand glared at the ghost teen. "Hey!"

"Very good!" Spectra smiled, her tone patronising and sick. She was clapping her hands, as though she were entertained by the fact that someone had figured out her scheme. Danny blinked, not super surprised, as her eyes flashed red, the white of her eyes disappearing in blood-red, and a circle of purple fire surrounding her.

"But I fear you've missed a few details!" she hissed, the fire shifting to smoke and the smoke surrounding her. The smoke faded into nothingness quickly and left her form a pitch black, her legs disappearing and leaving a ghostly tail. Her hands glowed with green ecto-energy, her power greater from the misery in the air.

Danny couldn't dodge as Spectra flew at him, but he did not have to as Bertrand pounced on him, his body in the wolf form that it had, and sent him through the wall. The force threw the two all the way outside, Danny's body held against a tree by Bertrand's paw.

"You thought you were going to stop us? You? You're just a frightened little kid!" He brandished the claws in his other paw and brought it forward to slash through the teenager's chest.

Danny closed his eyes and focused, all of Phantom's power surging through him, letting his body go intangible and fall through the tree behind him into the ground. As Bertrand's claws hit the bark of the tree, leaving the older ghost confused, Danny flew out of the ground, punching Bertrand with all his might and sending him over the school building.

Cold hands attached to strong arms wrapped around Danny, making him gasp in fright and his mind went blank.

He could feel the horrible things that people had said to him when he was smaller, feel them wrap around his mind, taking him over, dragging him into misery. He was hearing Spectra's laugh as she poked around in his mind, making memories that he had long since hidden away with anti-depressants and distractions.

He remembered a funeral, his grandfather, and being left alone. Always alone.

* * *

\- He sat in the Child Services offices, holding onto his fox with a fierce grip. Jazz was reading a new book that Jack had gotten for her. They said that they were changing his name today.

Why did he need a new name?

* * *

"Let go of me!" he cried out, not able to stop the female ghost from flying him over to where they would be able to see the auditorium from its highest windows. The dominoes were falling and Danny saw Jazz with a smile on her face.

"Why would I do that? Your doubt, your misery, it's delicious." Penelope licked her lips let the misery wash over her. "And the best part is, as soon as that silly speech is over, and that last domino falls and the sparklers vaporize the speaker, we'll leave you here to take the blame. And by the time I'm done with you, you'll be sure it was all your fault!"

"Man, I am so tired of you dumping on me. And I am so tired of dumping on myself." He kept his eyes on Jazz and thought of how she asked questions and came across as sincere, and Danny remembered that it wasn't in her to lie.

"Jazz never did that, even when I was mad at her." He felt power inside of him again and let the surge throw Spectra off of him. "And I won't let her down!" He glared at her, rage filling him. She would kill his sister, one of the only people that had ever seen inside his Universe, his own ideals of the world, and even if she had turned it away, she had accepted it.

Danny felt his face lose expression as Bertrand was called, now in a ninja form of all things, with nun chucks spinning.

"I so don't have time for this."

* * *

One moment, she was on stage. The next, the sound of an explosion filled her ears, only to go away as she was carried away from it.

Jazz looked down at the ghost boy as he carried her, an arm under her legs and the other on her back, through the wall of the gym into one of the storage hallways in the back of Casper High. As he set her on her feet, she stared back.

This was Danny… The silly kid that believed in fantasy and science and had much better grades before something had begun affect his mind so much, before he lost his self-confidence, was a hero, her hero.

Danny smiled at Jazz. She was safe and fine and everything would be all right.

Clammy hands grabbed him again and pulled him into a nearby storage room. He screamed out of shock but groaned softly when his back hit one of the stone walls.

"Look at you," she whispered. She knocked the Fenton Thermos away when Danny brought it up to open, having seized his head and keeping it in her grip.

"What are you?" she asked. "A ghost trying to fit in with humans? Or some creepy little boy with creepy little powers?"

Danny stared back at her for a moment, or rather, he stared at nothing. What… was he?

"Both!" Not really. "Uh...neither! I don't know." It hurt to say that, that he didn't know.

It hurt just as much as not knowing who his parents, his birth parents, were.

"You're a freak! Not a ghost, not a boy! Who cares for a thing like you?!" Spectra smiled, feeling the pit of misery that she had begun to dig swell and burst into a fountain, Danny's misery a flowing energy that washed over her. The fact that it was visible excited Penelope. This child was so deeply depressed, he might as well serve the purpose as a life source for her and Bertrand for a good long while. She let him fall to the floor, disoriented, leaving him to stew in her words.

"Excuse me."

Danny looked up in surprise. Jazz stood in the doorway with something in her hand

"I don't know this kid, but I hope it's okay if he gets a second opinion." She held up the Fenton Ghost Peeler, activating it. She held still as it shook in her grasp, the armour traveling up her arm. She was unbiased as to her dad's invention until it came to case her most private areas as well. "...This is weird."

Suited up from head to toe, she aimed and fired the Peeler at the black ghost. She didn't close her eyes or flinch as Spectra screamed in pain, her black form peeling away to expose her human disguise, which further peeled away, revealing older and older versions of herself. All that was left by the time that Danny mentioned something about "having nothing within" was an ancient looking woman, hair stark white and her back hunched. Wrinkles marred her face and her womanly assets were taken over by age, no hint of attractiveness left.

Spectra felt at her face with wrinkled hands and cried out in utter horror. "Ah, no! I am nothing without my youth!"

Her screams again filled the air as Danny sucked her into the Fenton Thermos, the tension in the air disappearing.

As the armour of the Fenton Peeler retracted back to its original unit, Jazz smiled. "Hey, it worked! But it's still weird."

* * *

Danny sat on the couch once he and his sister were home. She drove them both home, just appreciating each other's existences in the world. He looked through one of his library books, one about poetry. The forty-fifth sonnet by Shakespeare caught his attention.

"'By those sweet messengers return'd from thee/ Who even but now come back again, assur'd/Of thy fair health, recounting it to me…'"

"What are you reading, Danny? Poetry?"

Danny looked up and saw that at some point in time, Jazz had taken a seat beside him, smiling daintily. He nodded and turned the book so that she could read with him if she wished. Jazz took a glance at the poem he had just been reading, as he indicated so with his index finger, and shook her head.

"I'm not too fond of poetry, really. It's romantic, but it can be interpreted in so many ways, it's ridiculous."

"Ridiculous?" Danny turned to the table of contents, scanning the page, before turning to the one he sought.

"'But our love it was stronger by far than the love/Of those who were older than we-/ Of many far wiser than we-/ And neither the angels in heaven above,/ Nor the demons down under the sea,/ Can ever dissever my soul from the soul/ Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.'" He read it straight from the page, Edgar Allan Poe's picture gracing the opposite page. Danny turned to his sister.

"It's just a stanza, but doesn't it make you wonder how a man could feel so strongly for a woman?" Jazz looked down at the page. Her face held a pensive air and she tried to analyse the man behind the words.

"It sounds like an obsessive love," she decided. "He talks about being stronger than a belief system-"

Danny sighed. "No. He says that nothing can take him from the woman he loves, showing a strong sense of monogamy and thus a strong conviction to his belief system." He looked at Jazz. "You talk about obsession. Obsession is being preoccupied with an unwanted thought or emotion, to the point where you get anxious."

Jazz held still as Danny laid the book between them, now closed, and reached to embrace her. She returned it, her mind still racing about knowing his secret double-life, and she mulled over his words spoken and the ones he was currently speaking.

"If love could be obsession, then it would be an unwanted thought… I can't imagine anyone that would want to not be loved."

She held him for a moment, and then she pulled away to kiss his forehead. Words that didn't sound like those of a fourteen-year-old boy were living inside of his heart, and it was interesting to hear them again after so long.

She didn't protest when he kissed her, placing his benediction there. "Even if this sounds cheesy and not like me, thanks for being my sister, Jazz."

Danny smiled when she did the same to him, smiling as she pulled away, and said to him, "Thank you for being you."

* * *

Jazz was thirteen years old and she whined to herself as her brother smiled at her. They were hiding under the bleachers, free time taking place. After the school talent show, the sixth and eighth graders – grouped together as to not have talking occur between classes, due to age difference – were given time to hang around the gymnasium.

One of Danny's friends was looking for him, so he decided to hide, teasing. Jazz sighed and hugged her brother. He had performed on stage, impressing her very much, and she understood that he was probably nervous about the judging. The fifth and seventh graders were all a-buzz about the sixth grader's performance, and Jazz was very proud of him.

"Your act was great, you know." Danny looked up at her and blinked, as though not understanding her statement.

"Really?" She nodded. She smiled as a kiss was pressed to her cheek, but froze when another came.

"Danny, you can't do that."

"But why?" Danny protested.

Jazz bit her lip. Something in her was battling, but she wasn't quite sure what it was. "I don't like it. We're in public anyway, doofus."

"Oh." Danny pulled away from her, standing. "That's a different story." He bent down to kiss the top of her head and then walked away. "Love you, sissy!"

Jazz shook her head, trying to recover from what just happened.

* * *

And if someone is tired of loving, isn't it their right to stop when they can't take it anymore?


End file.
